Relapse
by alias-annabel
Summary: Sam has started drinking demon blood again, behind Dean's back. His secret, however, is not kept for long. Brotherly ANGST, brotherly H/C. Language, of course.


**1.**

The Winchester brothers had settled into an old, haggard motel room not even 2 hours ago, and already Sam was researching avidly on his laptop, and Dean was preparing to go out and do a little of his own research on their current case, ask around town while he was at it. Both brothers had been exhausted upon arrival, but Dean had insisted that they start snooping around as soon as possible. When Sam had offered to accompany him, Dean had flatly refused and said he could handle things on his own, and told Sam to get a bit of rest.

"Alright, I'm off," Dean called, pulling open the motel room door before sparing a short glance behind himself to look over at Sam. The older of the two was all dressed up in a suit, stuffing his fake FBI identification into the inside pocket of his blazer. "Don't hurt yourself thinkin' too hard," he added snidely.

Sam glanced up from his laptop to his departing big brother, rolling his eyes but nodding his head. "Yeah, okay," he replied nonchalantly, his long fingers drumming rhythmically on the keys of his laptop even as his eyes darted away. Dean shrugged, turning away and walking out the door.

The youngest of the two Winchesters watched as the door swung closed, fidgety fingers clenching into a fist, then got up and peered out the side of the window as Dean hopped into the Impala and drove her out of the parking lot and down the road, until she and he were out of sight.

Breathing out a faltering sigh of relief, Sam spun around and took long strides over to his bag, which was pushed up into the corner of the room. He unzipped it with quivering hands and reached down to the bottom of it, feeling around until what he was looking for came into contact with his fingertips. He closed his grip around the small, stainless steel water bottle and pulled it gently out of his bag. He held it up. It looked so normal and harmless.

Sam unscrewed the lid and popped it off, and the scent of the contents hit him full on, making his growing thirst and need intensify almost unbearably. His breathing sped up as he glanced over at the door, as if expecting Dean to burst back through it, but when no accusing big brother was in sight he looked away and then brought the bottle up to his lips, unable to stall himself anymore.

He drank a third of the dark liquid that filled half the bottle, having to force himself to pull away when he kept drinking more than he could afford to. A drop of crimson blood drew a dark line down his chin, and he wiped it away quickly with the wrist of his shirt sleeve, running his tongue across his lips and reveling in the sudden rush it gave him.

Sam had started drinking demon blood again. He has kept this a secret from Dean for nearly three weeks, drinking blood whenever his brother wasn't around to see. He knew he'd be in the deepest shit ever if Dean found out. His big brother would be devastated, disappointed, disgusted. Sam already felt that way about himself, and he didn't really want those feelings doubled, as selfish as it was of him to hide this.

The younger Winchester knew what he was doing was the lowest of the low, and the weakest thing he'd ever done, but he just couldn't pull himself away. Simply thinking about the withdrawal he'd gone through the first time getting off the stuff made him shudder violently where he stood, as phantom memories of the emotional and physical pain he'd endured rattled through his bones.

One thing that he'd never dreamed of telling Bobby or Dean, was that the strong yearning for demon blood had never completely faded away after the cleansing of it from his body. Sam was always thirsty for more of it, his instincts constantly urging him to start up again, it just wasn't necessarily an 'addiction' anymore. He'd felt so weak, he'd felt like nothing after he'd stopped drinking it the first time. A long wave of depression and feelings of worthlessness had plagued him for a long, dragging space of time, feelings which Dean failed to notice. Sam had made sure of that.

Then there was that small band of demons, only one town before this one. Things played out the way they shouldn't have, and presto, just like that, Sam was all 'hopped up' again. He had found a way to fill up his (quite conveniently) recently bought water bottle with the demon's seeping blood, and stuffed it into his bag before Dean had gotten back from chasing down the last one that'd managed to slip away.

The worst part about it was that it wasn't really 100% about power anymore. It was mostly to make Sam feel better, to fight off the depression that had literally felt like it was crushing him. It was an addiction again, plain and simple. But Sam had convinced himself that it was better this way. He wouldn't be as much of a burden to Dean this way, if he could defend himself better.

He had started out with a full bottle in the last town, now he was on his last couple of mouthfuls, and wasn't sure what he would do when the blood was all gone. He was afraid, very afraid. He could only hope that a hunt would come up soon with demons involved, and that wasn't even considering if he'd be lucky enough to nab more blood.

The taller Winchester blinked as he realized that he's spaced out, relishing in the power that this fresh dose of blood had given him and drowning in the guilt that had soon followed. He closed the bottle and shoved it back down to the bottom of his bag, piling other crap inside of said bag on top of the bottle until it was completely hidden. Not that Dean really looked through his stuff anymore anyway, but Sam was extremely paranoid about his brother finding his precious storage. He'd worked so hard to keep it a secret all these weeks.

Sam went over into the small cubic bathroom and turned on the sink, twisting the knob as far as it would go, until the spray of water was thundering violently against the stained porcelain bowl. He bent down to wash out his mouth so no red stains remained on his teeth. He grimaced into the smudged up mirror, scanning over his teeth at all angles, then stuck out his tongue. Some tiny traces of blood remained, coating the taste buds near the back of his mouth. He swallowed hard, then checked again. His tongue was pink, clean.

When he was done with that, he went back into the main room.

Sam glanced around, suddenly wanting to do something useful with his new found strength, but unable to come up with anything to occupy himself with. He would have to wait and find out more about what was happening in town, wait for Dean to get back. Kill something... well, supernatural, if an opportunity arose.

With a deep sigh, Sam shuffled back to his laptop, tugging a hand through his messy hair, catching his fingers on a few knots. He spent the next couple of hours skimming idly through random articles on recent crimes in this town, reading over the one page that had drawn his and Dean's attention, about missing children, each disappearance occurring within the span of two weeks and still with no explanation behind it after two months, and no bodies found. It could be anything, but the fact that it was only children sort of irked him, as well as there being an exact pattern to the disappearances.

Yeah, it was rather odd, but Sam didn't really find anything too interesting or, frankly, supernatural about it, but as Dean had said earlier, _you never know_. He closed his laptop but left it on just in case for when Dean returned. He flopped down backwards onto his single bed with a huff as he landed on his back, arms bent behind his head and staring at the ceiling, his mind on demon blood. Finding more, drinking more, feeling better, stronger, useful...

Not too much later, there was the sound of the Impala driving back up the road towards the motel, then after a minute the sharp clicking sound of a key in a lock, and Sam lolled his head to the side to see Dean closing the door behind himself.

"Hey," Sam greeted enthusiastically, sitting up and resting his forearms on his thighs. He tilted his head inquiringly. "Anything?"

Dean shrugged, tossing his jacket aside and loosening his tie as he sauntered over to his own bed, flopping down onto his stomach with a groan. "Not much," came the short, muffled reply.

Sam tried to hide his intense disappointment at the news, and at Dean's lack of communication. "_Nothing_ that indicates supernatural activity?" he pressed timidly, fighting the frustrated pout that wanted to appear on his lower lip. "...Sulfur?" he added, half jokingly.

"I already told you _no_, Sam, get it through your head for once," Dean snapped, turning onto his side sharply to glare at his younger brother from where he was slumped on the bed. Even in such a position, those scarily cold green eyes sort of intimidated Sam to a degree, and so he shut right up, looking down shamefully at his knees and wringing his hands awkwardly.

There was a long moment of silence.

"'M sorry," Dean said, his voice relatively softer, though still as hollow and untrusting as it always was nowadays. "I'm just really tired, haven't got patience for much right now."

Sam looked over at Dean, smiling hesitantly. "I get it, dude. You've been driving for a while, then went out not long after we got here. I'd be pissed at everything too."

Dean rolled his eyes, but there was the faint ghost of a smile on his lips afterwards. "Alright, enough of this small talk bullcrap, I'm going to bed."

Sam's heart fluttered happily at the almost-smile he received from his big brother. Dean didn't really smile at him much anymore, not since the whole demon blood ordeal. Sam didn't really blame him. He knew that he was pretty much clinging to Dean's trust by a thread right now.

That reminder sent Sam's gut clenching with sadness and self loathing, and he closed his eyes, as if trying to shut out the feelings with his eyelids.

Dean got up from the bed and blatantly stripped down to his boxers, then burrowed under his covers, falling asleep in a matter of seconds. Sam hit the sack not long afterwards, the strength of the demon blood still crackling contradictingly in his fingertips, keeping him awake for a prolonged amount of hours.

* * *

It was unbelievably chilly when Sam woke up the next morning. He immediately began to shiver (or maybe he'd already been shivering), folding his arms across his chest and rubbing at his aching shoulders. "Oh, g-god," he stuttered, ducking his face under the covers, which still held a pitiful amount of warmth from his body heat. His stomach churned with a queasy feeling, and he felt light headed to top it all off. Was he getting sick?

"About time you woke up," came Dean's voice from across the room. "C'mon, we're gonna miss the breakfast buffet if we don't hurry."

Sam groaned and rolled over, cracking his eyes open so that they were only foggy hazel slits, and peered at his older brother in annoyance. "_Breakfast buffet_? Goddamn, why is it so damn cold?" he ground out, pulling the covers all the way over his head.

"It ain't cold at all, what're you saying? Get _up_, Sammy!" Dean growled, and suddenly Sam's covers were ripped completely off of him so he was fully exposed to the biting cold.

"Dean, what the hell-!" Sam whimpered, grabbing his pillow and lobbing it violently at Dean in a fit of anger. He felt a slight satisfaction as a faint 'oof' sound came from his brother, though it would've felt better if Sam had used something harder, like the bedside lamp for example.

The younger man eventually dragged himself out of bed after being unable to take any more of Dean's grousing, and began to pull on his pants which he'd left on the floor. Dean was already fully dressed and wide awake. Sam was fumbling with buckling his belt, his hands trembling from the cold, when he suddenly felt a hand close around his wrist, abruptly halting his movements.

Sam looked up in alarm to see Dean staring down at his younger brother's wrist, his brow furrowed. "Uh, D-Dean?" Sam asked nervously with a slight chatter of his teeth, pulling at the grip on his wrist, in vain.

Dean yanked Sam's arm up so it was at his eye level, then ran a finger over the sleeve. Sam's gut clenched as he saw the long, thin smear of dried demon's blood running along his sleeve. Shit.

Dean look up from the dirtied fabric to Sam, his eyes growing dark. "Sam, is this your blood?"

Sam's whole body went tense, and he just couldn't bring himself to meet Dean's fiery green gaze. "No," he near whispered, his suspended hand clenching into a white-knuckled fist. There was a painful moment of silence, and then Dean dropped Sam's arm, instead grasping his younger brother's chin and firmly jerking it upwards, so that Sam would look at him. That was something Dean hadn't done in a long while, and it made Sam's heart damn near stop.

"Whose is it then? Where'd that blood come from, Sam? It looks fresh." There was definitely the undercurrent of panic and uncertainty in Dean's quiet voice, and Sam immediately regretted saying it wasn't his blood. That just made his next lie a lot less convincing.

"I... I don't know, I must've been, like, uh, scratching in my sleep... or something." As soon as he'd said it, he expected Dean's reply.

"You just said the blood's not yours."

"Oh, well, that's cause... Well, I don't know whose it is, I'm just assuming..." Sam cursed himself repeatedly for not being able to lie to Dean's face in this moment. Hell, it was painful for him to even look Dean in the eyes right now, and he had no clue why. Well, of course he knew why. Dean was his big brother. And he hated lying to his big brother, his caretaker, his best friend, possibly more than anything else.

Dean suddenly yanked up Sam's sleeves, examining his arms with an expert eye before lifting up his shirt and checking his torso. Scars from past hunts littered Sam's body, but not the blood that Dean was evidently looking for.

"Dean!" Sam squawked, yanking his shirt back down indignantly as the air bit at his exposed skin. "Jeez, you really do want people to think we're gay, don't y-"

"This isn't _funny_! You haven't scratched yourself anywhere as far as I can tell, you've never even _done_ that before. I didn't see that blood on you yesterday before I left. So, did you do something while I was out, Sam? Cause that's the only logical explanation I'm pullin' from this." Dean crossed his arms, staring accusingly at his younger brother. Sam knew he was in shit when Dean called him 'Sam' and not his normal, good-natured 'Sammy'.

"Dean, I swear I'm fine, I honestly don't know where it came from," Sam tried to reason, but Dean wasn't having it. Usually Sam would be indignant and irritated with Dean in a situation like this, but the guilt was too laden on his chest. Dean strolled around Sam and over towards his younger brother's bag, still in the corner of the room, intending to rifle through it for Ruby's knife and see if Sam had remembered to clean it, or maybe didn't clean it properly, that could be a possibility. Not a likely one, but the likeliest one at the moment, ever since Sam started carrying the thing everywhere with him.

"You might've gotten blood all over inside your bag, Sam, from that last hunt," Dean commented.

Sam's heart stopped, he couldn't breathe, and suddenly, in a fit of adrenaline, he was lunging at his big brother as swiftly as he could, tackling him into the wall with a bruising _thud_. Dean was too shocked to shove his little brother off of him for a second, and he simply stared up at Sam with wide eyes, which were slowly hardening to steel.

Sam may be taller than Dean, but that didn't make his older brother any less intimidating when he was mad. And boy, was he _mad_. It was one of those bursts of rage that only lasted a couple moments, and Sam knew what was coming to him next.

Before the younger Winchester could blink, he was thrown flat on his ass, a pained yelp escaping him as Dean drove his hands into his brother's chest with a considerable amount of his strength and sent him flying backwards.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Dean snarled, staring down at his little brother incredulously.

Sam sat up, rubbing at his tail bone with a hiss. "Damn it Dean, that really hurt..."

"Sam, you hiding something from me? Coulda sworn as soon as I went towards your duffle, you-"

"I'm not!" Sam yelled, a little too quickly, a little too loudly for Dean's liking. Dean raised his eyebrows, his face set in determination now.

He turned and continued back towards Sam's bag. Thanks to his younger brother's frantic reaction, he now knew where Sam was hiding, well, whatever the hell he was hiding. Maybe some chick's panties, Dean considered with a slight smirk.

Before the older Winchester could make it across the room, however, Sam had kicked out his feet, hitting Dean in the back of his knees, and Dean was on the floor again.

Sam crawled across the floor towards his bag, set on running out the door with it and dumping the demon blood somewhere far away, before Dean could see it, but he didn't have time to block Dean's socked foot flying at his face, and he took the kick head on, recoiling with a shout of pain. That was gonna bruise. The blow left Sam feeling more dizzy than he had when he first woke up this morning, and he nearly threw up, but managed to calm himself.

Dean finally made it to the bag and picked it up off the floor, dangling it in front of his brother's stricken face. "What're you hiding, Sam?" he asked a little breathlessly, "You know I fucking hate it when you keep things from me."

"Dean, please don't, it's private!" Sam begged, looking up at Dean from where he was on his knees, still recovering from the blow to his jaw. He already knew begging was a lost cause, but he was getting desperate.

It was too late. Dean opened up the bag and searched around with a minute, playful grin etched across his lips, and the fact that Dean was just teasing him made this so much worse. Dean was partly doing this to show Sam he still cared about him and that he was still his big brother, in his own stupid Dean-y way, and Sam could feel hot tears burning the backs of his eyes as the situation unfolded exactly how it shouldn't have. Sam hadn't been careful enough this time, and now he would pay the price.

Dean pulled out Sam's bottle after a few moments, something he hadn't seen Sam carrying around with them before, and tossed the bag back down on the floor, sloshing this newfound object around in curiosity. The contents made a thick, sloppy noise within the canteen.

"What's _this_?" he questioned, opening it up and peering inside, expecting some kind of booze and wondering why Sam was so panicked about it. He instantly recoiled at the raunchy smell, but once he realized what it really was, and the pieces all clicked together resoundingly, the color seemed to have drained from Dean's face, along with his smile.

Sam felt like a part of him had died in that moment.

* * *

So this is a fun little angsty thing I've been wanting to write. Should I continue it? Not sure where it will go. o:


End file.
